Moonlight
by Thanatos Letus
Summary: AU. Nico, a lonely artist, feels trapped in his current school and only a certain head boy can help him escape.


**Moonlight  
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>Nico sat with his back against the trunk of the big oak tree right at the edge of the school ground. He was looking endlessly out beyond the fence that ran all the way around the school. It kept them all inside, away from the rest of the world, with the prefects running around shouting orders and giving out detentions to those that refused to obey. The head boy was strolling around trying, with little effect, to keep the prefects in line so that they wouldn't scare away the skittish first years with their brashness.<p>

His small and fragile body was shivering in the cold autumn air, whilst leaves were falling down and blowing away in the chilly wind. The sky was gray, heavy with clouds that refused to weep. The sun was too far gone to give him any assistance against the punishing thoughts flying through his head. Those thoughts that kept reminding him that he didn't belong, that he was too different. He was easily the smallest boy there, and his lack of muscles could make it potentially dangerous for him to join the other activities. Or at least, that was what he was told by the others. It didn't matter to Nico though, he didn't like football anyway. Or at least, that's what he told himself.

He reached into his satchel and took out his most trusted friend. It was a notebook, well used, overflowing with intricate drawings of the landscape that existed outside of the fence. Next he pulled out a number two pencil and placed it on one of the few blank pages of the book. He sat there for a while contemplating what to draw, when he heard a particularly loud sound from behind. He turned around and saw the head boy shouting at a disgruntled prefect and inspiration struck.

He didn't know how long he sat there alone, drawing as if his life depended on it. But he stopped when a tiny drop of water fell down upon the charcoal lines on the paper. Nico wiped his cheeks with the back of his hand and blamed the wetness on the rain that was now steadily pouring down from the heavens. The clouds had lost their battle. Looking down upon the drawing, he saw an imperfect copy of the handsome head boy that he'd never officially met.

Nico could be found by the window at second floor library later that night. Most of the other boys had gone to the common rooms by now and though he longed for his bed, he did not want to disturb the others by barging in unwanted. He knew it would only lead to more teasing and pranks if he were to do so.

Night was fast approaching and the clouds had cleared so you now could see the moon and the stars slowly emerge upon the soon to be black sky. It was a beautiful sight and Nico couldn't keep himself from feeling a certain kinship with the glowing moon. Because the moon, unlike its counterpart, was surrendered by millions upon millions of stars, yet it still hung there completely by itself, unable to reach the glowing white lights around it.

Nico opened the notebook that was placed upon the desk in front of him and studied the five new drawings. They were all of a relatively tall boy with dark hair and big open eyes that would have been sea green if Nico owned colored pencils. The head boy was posed differently in all five pictures. In the first, he was angry next to a faceless prefect, in the next he was looking sympathetically toward a first year and so forth and so on. The head boy was never alone in the drawings, a bit removed from the others maybe, but never alone.

Nico started on a new drawing on the very last page of the notebook whilst thinking of the head boy. He always knew he was different. That he didn't quite fit in. He never considered why until he laid eyes upon the head boy for the first time. He was a first year back then and the head boy was barely a prefect. Nico had never been brave enough to walk up and talk to the handsome boy, even though he desperately wanted to. He was doomed to be alone in this dreaded institution with its high fences and bickering students. He was too small, too weak and too afraid that if they knew, it would surely get worse. He would forever be like the moon, always at the edge, never quite able to touch.

Nico looked back down at the now finished drawing of the bead boy. It still wasn't quite perfect. He never could get the mouth right. A sudden noise brought him out of his thoughts. "Hi, I'm Percy" someone said from his right. He looked up and straight into the face of a lone handsome boy just a few short years older than him. Nico smiled for the first time in a long time and let his eyes flicker down to the little shiny badge upon the boy's blazer and remembered that sometimes the moonlight manages to shine a little bit brighter than usual.


End file.
